


A Lifetime of Her

by KalendraAshtar



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Angst and Fluff, F/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2018-10-02 17:31:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10223465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KalendraAshtar/pseuds/KalendraAshtar
Summary: Throughout their early years, Jamie and Claire meet at crucial points in their lives, supporting and healing each other. Eventually, Jamie realizes that Claire alone holds all his heart – but it might be too late to find his way to her.





	1. Part I - “And in my chest you know me best”

**Part I – _“And in my chest you know me best”_**

**_Ten_ **

Claire was born to me the day I buried my mother. As Ellen Fraser’s body started the trajectory from life to dust, my tears - mingled with the punishing earth that had swallowed her - started the alchemy that made finding her possible. _Inevitable_. She was the cure for the disease that would afflict me, relentlessly, for years - she was the decisive matter elapsed from my grieving heart.

Too bad celestial bodies have no clue about the translational movements and light-years between them – how they will overcome it all to collide and change the cosmos. And so we had been too – oblivious of the outcome of a somber day in a forlorn graveyard in Scotland.  

I was ten years old and stood alone in front of the fresh patch of soil, revolved to embrace another tale’s end about humanity. The air was filled with the smell of carnations and moss – a cemetery being just another form of garden, after all. Seeds of broken hopes and shortened lives, springing into the sky in white marble tombstones, akin to eternal sprouts. My father had taken Jenny away, to wait in the car – they longed to go home, to feel the scarce comfort of the beloved ghosts of _Lallybroch_.

I don’t know why I stayed behind. Maybe I wanted to tell her something, too personal or too foolish to be told in the presence of others; perhaps I just feared to leave her alone, abandoned in a place where no one would hold her hand, as she had held mine countless times before. Standing there it was all too real and definitive – I couldn’t pretend she had gone on a voyage or build up a story about her laughter spread on a different house somewhere. She was _definitely_ gone – _dead_ \- and that meant that millions of aspects of my life had died with her.

I think it was raining – being Scotland, odds are that it was. I remember the moistness on my cheeks, reminding me I still had skin to form boundaries around my loss – rain or tears, because at ten years old crying was the most visceral form at expressing what is bigger than words. I wiped them stubbornly, furiously, irrationally mad at myself.

“You can cry, you know.” A voice echoed, haunting as the croak of a raven, close enough to make me startle. I looked around and saw a girl, as young and misplaced as myself. She was shorter than me, but probably a bit older – her eyes reminded me of butterscotch, sweet and forbidden. Her hair was a riot of curls and unlike the lasses I knew she hadn’t tried to tame it by placing a bow or a headband on it. Her face was strikingly beautiful and she was serious, even if there were hints of softness there.  “It’s alright to cry.” She repeated in a perfect English accent, nodding in encouragement.

“What are ye doing here?” I asked, more decided than ever to stop crying – and failing miserably.

She raised her brows and shrugged slightly, her scrawny shoulders moving underneath her blue woollen sweater. “Visiting.” She answered, as if it was perfectly normal to be strolling across a cemetery on a Sunday morning. “Who died?”

Her bluntness made me shook in repressed grief – but there was something irresistible about her, so I answered through clenched teeth. “My mother.”

“Oh.” Her eyes darkened, just a bit – like caramel that had marginally passed the perfect point, turning slightly bitter under the heat of the stove. “I’m sorry.” And in her voice I detected a true empathy about my loss, which went beyond every void word and gesture I had received during my mother’s wake the previous day. “Was she sick, then?”

“No.” I blinked away a new bout of warm tears. “She was pregnant.”

The girl nodded in unspoken understanding – she seemed to be remarkably sensitive and perceptive. She licked her lips and looked straight at me again, a soft smile dawning on her pretty-shaped mouth. “Crying will definitely help. I’m sorry to say the pain won’t go away – but it will be transformed into something you can use. And each day it’ll get a little easier not to cry anymore.”

“How do ye ken that?” I said a bit harshly, pursing my lips in bitterness. I was convinced, as most people of that age would, that my story was unique and my pain the worst in history – no one ever hurt the way I did.

She sighed and turned around, preparing to leave – my stomach contracted at the thought of being left alone again, to discover by myself what to do with my grief – but she urged me to follow her. “Come with me.”

I obediently followed her, my feet dragging numb at my command. We dodged tombstones, making our way through a path filled with mud and scattered flower petals. Eventually, we came around an ancient mausoleum – built to be the ultimate house of a great poet, who would probably frown upon such ostensive arrangements – and arrived at two black stones, placed neatly together as sleeping twins.

_“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” -_ It read bellow the name _“Henry Beauchamp”._ The other one was marked with _“Julia”_ and a simpler phrase was her epitaph – _“We loved, so we were.”_

 “What’s your mother’s name?” The girl asked, kneeling in front of the stones with ease. I noticed how her fingers sought to touch the marble, a caress undoubtedly repeated hundreds of times before.

“Ellen.” I babbled, desperately thinking if I should kneel next to her to show my respect, but deciding against it – I dinna wish to trespass her sacred space.

“Hello Mama! Hello Dad!” She said cheerfully to the stones. “I was wondering if you can take care of a woman named Ellen? You know, show her whatever you do in the afterlife?” The girl waited, as if giving them time to answer. “Her son misses her, but he looks strong – I think he’ll manage just fine. Tell her I’m watching over him.”

“Do ye do that often?” I asked, mouth slightly open in bewilderment. “Talk to them?”

“Not really.” She patted one last time the stones and got up, offering me a defiant glance. “Only when it’s _really_ important.”

“Hmm.” I croaked, placing my hands inside my pockets. “Do ye really think they listen?”

“It’s not so much for them, as it is for me.” She whispered and smiled, content of sharing her secret. “Either way, they haven’t failed me so far.”

“I thank ye.” I whispered, as she touched my shoulder with her small hand. It was a brief contact but enough to root me, to ground me – like a force field that would, in time, make my scattered pieces fit together again.

“I’ll see you around.” The girl announced, beginning to walk towards the gate of the graveyard. She stopped and waved at me, her curls dangling around her face, strangely luminescent in a place robbed of all light.

Only hours later, lying on my bed – hearing the distant muffled sobs of Jenny in the room down the hall – I realized I never asked her name. I wondered if I’d see her again someday – as I held on to the guiding wisdom she had borrowed me from her own experience of loss.

For years she was there, in the background of my mind – a memory of light in the most terrible of days. Our encounter was so uncanny that it became a dream half-remembered, that I struggled to keep in my hours of wakefulness.

It would take me ten years to find out her name.


	2. Part II - “In slow motion the blast is beautiful”

**Part II – _“In slow motion the blast is beautiful”_**

**_Twenty_ **

I watched as people walked in the gardens outside the hospital, struggling to distance myself from the acute sound that seemed to be permanently whistling inside my ears. It was the sound of _immediately before_ – the universe’s cry of warning that catastrophe was imminent. I found myself trapped in that moment, long after the physical pain was gone – after weeks in the intensive care unit, I was finally starting the skin grafts on my back –, paralyzed in a life-changing moment. Doomed to stand in the frontier of what I had been and what the blast had made me become.

A couple was strolling nearby, the woman holding the bundle of their newborn baby, the man enraptured, dutifully keeping watch over a couple of celebratory balloons, announcing a perfect boy in impeccable blue.

I had seen myself in that life, before. My hand entwined with a faceless woman – her eyes mysteriously the colour of strong whiskey, enough to inebriate me with its fumes -, mindlessly walking towards a shared house, a shared life. I couldn’t fathom such a thing now – the explosion, caused by a gas leak at my apartment building at the university, had tarnish skin and dreams alike.

The breeze kept everyone outside mercifully comfortable, under an otherwise hot sun. It was only the second time I had ventured to go outside, wearing the notorious grey pajamas from the hospital, which marked me as belonging somewhere else other than sitting on a bench under the leafy tree.

The sense of disconnection from everything around me was crushing – I felt like I was standing inside a glassed cage, looking at people with normal lives, unable to find an escape to join them. Jenny and Ian visited me daily, trying their best to cheer me up and to bring me back to myself – I had no heart to tell them that only dust and fragments had remained from that man. I was alive, _thankfully_ – but had no notion of what to do with that surprising gift.

“May I sit down?” A woman asked me. I nodded, not bothering to look at her – instead I curled more into my robe, making myself invisible, biting my bottom lip to avoid moaning with pain from the stretching skin. Breathing, moving, walking – everything came with a renewed cost, as if to remind me that my survival still demanded sacrifice.

She sat on the other end of the bench. I saw her blue sneaker dangling spiritedly on the periphery of my vision, as my nostrils were filled with the smell of rosemary and lemon.

“Excuse me.” The voice next to me said, somewhat timidly. “I could swear I know you, but can’t really figure out from where…”

I tilted my head and looked straight into the sun.

Her eyes were the exact same shade as ten years before – I would recognize them anywhere, even if I couldn’t recognize her brown curls or her tentative smile. My jaw dropped an inch, as I stared flabbergasted at the girl from the graveyard.

“You!” I babbled, nervously fumbling with the catheter, skilfully taped to my forearm by a kind nurse. “Ah – yes!” I tried to recover seeing her confused look, silently kicking myself for blurting. “We have met once – many years ago.”

“You’re the boy from the cemetery.” She said slowly, her hawk eyes studying my face. She had an adorable wrinkle of concentration between her brows. “Ellen’s son!”

“Aye.” I smiled, shyly. “I dinna think ye’d remember that.”

“Of course I do.” She nodded, offering me a kind smile. “I always pay my respects to Ellen, whenever I visit my parents.”

I couldn’t answer – my throat suddenly thick with emotion, as words and feelings nestled like a snake around my vocal chords. That she remembered her act of kindness as vividly as I did – and that she had kept watch over my mother – deeply moved me. I gave her a – I hope – grateful nod and looked away, composing the emotions that ran wild, raw and untamed, after the accident.

“Are you a patient here?” She asked. I raised my eyes to look at her again and noticed she was wearing a white uniform, akin to the nurses I was used to see, with an identification card that read “ _C. Beauchamp. Trainee._ ”

“Aye.” I swallowed hard, attempting at nonchalance. “I have the pleasure of being a guest of the Burn Unit.”

“Ah.” Her eyes softened – it marvelled me how they changed so significantly, reflecting her states of mind. I was prepared to see the pity that always followed such a statement – but it never came. Her face was a mirror of sympathy and concern – but she wasn’t about to treat me as an invalid. “Good thing you’re able to come outside, then. Such a splendid day, today! I had been dreaming all morning of eating my sandwich outside.”

“Do ye work here?” I questioned, watching as she unwrapped and bit her sandwich – egg and tomato on rye bread – with a satisfaction that made my own mouth water.

“Nurse in training.” She explained, closing her eyes in delight for the utter brilliance of her simple pan. “Actually it’s my last day here.”

“I wish I could say the same.” I gave her a lopsided smile and she laughed – a bit too loud and carefree, like a delighted child. For a moment I forgot where I was and why I sat so uptight – she made me forget things. She made me remember others too – transparent things, important things, that could carve the exit from my self-imposed prison.

“The food isn’t that bad.” She joked, offering me some salt and vinegar chips that she had started to munch. Her eyes searched the plastic bracelet on my arm, easily reading my name there. “ _Jamie_.”

“Hmmm.” I smiled, conceding at the personal treatment. “I’m afraid I miss my morning parritch…” I looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to reveal her identity in return.

“ _Claire_.” She laughed, playfully saluting me with her joined fingers like a soldier. “Nice to meet you. _Again_.”

We stayed in amiable silence, as she completed her picnic-style lunch and I continued to study the world around me, through the eyes of a dead-man walking. But the trees where suddenly greener again and the distant voices seemed to speak to me, teasing me but finally within my reach.

“Thank ye,” I said slowly, tapping my fingers on my leg – much thinner than usual, muscles having been consumed in the furnace of my recovery. “For not asking - about what happened.”

Claire glanced at me – I saw again the same wise-beyond-her-years look, the soul that knew pain and how to heal it, which had held me together ten years before. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

I raised my brows, surprised. “It’s all everyone wants to talk about.”

“You can tell me, if you want to.” She licked her lips for crumbs and smiled, tilting her chin to expose her face to the sun. She resembled a lazy cat, stretching under the warmth, gathering enough energy to wreak havoc afterwards. “But I know you’re here and whole and that’s enough for me.”

“Is it?” I whispered, smiling beyond myself.

“Yes.” Claire threw me an evaluating glare, like she could read into my soul and was ready to challenge the defeatist thoughts that resided there. “Is it enough for _you_?”

“It hasn’t been…” I admitted, brushing my unusually short hair – another thing lost during the first days in hospital care. “But perhaps I’m beginning to see things differently.”

“I’m glad.” She smiled tenderly – and she seemed truly content. For the first time in weeks I noticed my heart galloping inside my chest, strong and lively, as able to be moved and broken as ever before.

“Jamie!” Jenny waved at me from the door, calling me to get back to my room – it was time for another dose of intravenous antibiotics and physical therapy. I raised my hand in response and slowly got up – whimpering and trembling a little, to my mortification. Claire’s hand quickly came to help stabilize me, holding my chest, as if she had guessed that my back was the source of all pain.

“Ye should be a doctor.” The words burst from my mouth, sounding strangely calm and confident. “Ye’ll be a wonderful nurse – but ye could be a brilliant doctor.”

She looked surprised – an image that suited her, for it was screamed from every trembling muscle, flutter of lashes and promise of smile in the corners of her mouth. Claire’s face spoke of truth as mine spoke of loss and of gratitude to her.

I waved in short goodbye and walked away slowly, holding my crutch for support.

When the physical therapist pressed me to give more, I gritted my teeth and did it, even if cursing every generation before him inside my head. When the nurses applauded the results of the healing grafts, I allowed myself to share the happiness, instead of focusing on everything still left to be done. When the quiet night came, I closed my eyes and dared to plan a life to come.

_Claire Beauchamp_. The woman who seemed to appear when my need was greatest. I wished I could talk to her and tell her that I had been scared – of living and failing to be enough – but she had healed me, like new and joyous blood cast into my veins. Unfortunately, I had only her name – no phone or address I could use to contact her.

The next time I saw her, she was wearing a black dress, in the middle of a night with no stars.


	3. Part III - "You don't know how lovely you are"

**Part III – _“You don’t know how lovely you are”_**

**_Twenty-four_ **

The night was unusually dark, even for the end of September – the scarce light of public illumination swallowed by scraps of mist, like cold long fingers, stretching to capture an unwary victim. But the lack of visible stars caused me more dismay – the feeling of infinity I usually felt gazing above my head, of endless life beyond the flapping of butterflies’ wings of human existence, veiled beyond my reach. I felt small and locked outside of a mystery that made my life more meaningful.

I was walking fast across _Princes Street_ , my hands buried on the pockets of my overcoat, thinking about the job interview I had endured that day – a promising position as a Math teacher for a local high school, very surprising considering my lack of experience and the fact that I was fresh out of college. The headmistress had seemed pleasant and competent, interested in knowing things about my personal life as well as my academic course – inevitably she had asked why I had took almost an entire year off school, four years ago. I had answered truthfully, reassuring her about my full recovery.

To my right I could see the Gardens and the outline of the _Scottish National Gallery_ , one of my favourite places in Edinburgh to relax and spend some free time. Without a second thought, I decided to make a shortcut across the park, which would lead me straight to the neighbourhood where I had rented a small, yet cosy, apartment.

I saw her before I could even hear her – she was standing alone, talking on the phone, close to the museum entrance. She was wearing a long black dress with sleeves, which fitted perfectly her mesmerizing body, kissing her curves with fabric lips – her hair pinned up in a simple but elegant knot. She sounded distressed and – I thought – angry enough to make me want to run in the other direction. I recognized her instantly, even in such different circumstances than those of our last encounter – _Claire_.

I walked – levitated, really – towards her, without any notion of why I was doing it. Perhaps I meant to thank her for what she had done in the past. Maybe I was fascinated by the idea that, for once, I could be her saviour. She was clearly dressed for an elegant party – as I approached the building, I noticed several people in similar clothing, probably heading for some sort of gala inside.

I could hear her talking more clearly, her voice quick and deadly, like the stab of a dagger. “ _Fine_!” She snapped, suddenly finishing her conversation. Claire looked at her phone with aversion, like she was considering the idea of throwing it to the nearby bushes.

I was near enough for her to notice my presence – without recognizing me, she quickly composed her expression and looked at her phone with pretended interest, fearing any unwanted advances from a strange man in the night.

“Claire?” I called her, as I reached the circle of light streamed through the museum’s doors. Her eyes jumped to mine and softened, as she promptly identified me.

“Jamie!” She greeted me, smiling – her lips were a soft pink with the touch of discrete lipstick. “How are you?”

“Good.” I grinned back – a gesture that almost entirely faded away as I noticed the ring on her finger. It was a sizable diamond, shining like a beacon made of crystal, outrageously dominant on her slender finger. _An engagement ring_.  “I couldna resist, coming to say hello.”

“It’s so good to see you!” Claire seemed honestly happy and warm – a million miles away from the cold glacier of moments before. “Are you coming to the charity gala too?”

“Ach, nae.” I gave her a lopsided smile and raised my brow. “Is that why ye’re here?”

“Yes.” She shrugged, sliding her phone inside her black satin clutch. “I was waiting for my fiancé but it seems he is… _rather busy_ at the moment. He won’t be coming.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I said softly, trying to abstract myself of how magnificent she looked – dark as the night, but with millions of stars inside her. “I’m sure ye’ll have a lovely time, nonetheless.”

“I doubt that.” She replied, somewhat conspiratorially. “This night was organized by a friend of my uncle – he was kind enough to invite me in honour of his memory. Actually, I don’t know a living soul inside those doors.” Claire’s eyes darkened, sadness creeping in. “Maybe I’ll just go home and send him my apologies afterwards.”

“No!” I instantly rejected the idea. “Perhaps I could go with ye?” I suggested in a cool tone, praying that I wasn’t about to blush. I pointed to my black attire, matched with a grey tie. “I’m wearing a suit after all.”

“That you are.” She smiled, with a hint of mischief in her eyes. “Do you really don’t mind?” Claire asked, nervously adjusting a stubborn curl that had fled her hairdo. “We could just pretend you’re my fiancé. No one really knows Frank, either way.”

“Of course, lass.” I mockingly offered her my arm for her to hold. “Shall we?”

We entered the party, quickly mingling with the crowd – an assorted array of wealthy men and women, with a taste for art and philanthropy - or for ostentation. Soon enough we had located the _canapé_ and champagne flutes, launching ourselves in a conversation about the artistry on display – or lack of it.

“So, are you fully recovered?” Claire eventually asked me over the live jazz music, that a small band was playing in the corner, a saxophone crying about the loss of an imperfect lover.

“Aye.” I nodded, offering her one of my owlish winks. “I’m so verra thankful for what ye did for me – I…”

“Don’t be silly!” She dismissed emphatically, waving her hand. “I should be the one to thank you!” And seeing my puzzled look, she leaned over and talked closer to my ear. “After what you told me, I went ahead and applied to medical school. I work some shifts as a nurse to pay my bills, but I’m a proud med student!”

“That is wonderful!” I congratulated her, squeezing her hand – soft and capable, warm under my fingers as a pulsing heart. “I’m so glad!”

I convinced her to dance, afterwards. She conceded with an amused smile. We swayed together, amongst other couples – I wasn’t an eager dancer and had no memory of a time when the idea of dancing had seemed appealing to me. But with Claire everything was natural and effortless – every move and word had the magical quality of destiny, of a life finally fulfilled. I tried very hard to overlook the shackles symbolized by her ring, the deafening warning of a tragedy I was powerless to avoid. She had wilfully surrender to the dragon – I couldn’t be her saving knight.

“So what happened to yer fiancé?” I asked tentatively, my hand struggling not to caress her lower back. _God_ , it seemed so easy to touch her, to hold her against me. “Ye seemed distraught.”

“He had a meeting with another faculty assistant.” She pursed her lips in discontent, her eyes avoiding his – hiding her pain and shame. “Something about a spectacular discovery in his newest research.”

“Oh.” I babbled, trying to sound charitable. “Have ye been engaged for a long time?”

“A couple of months.” Claire sighed, her fingers accidentally brushing the back of my neck and making me shiver, preparing to confess her secrets under the protection of the music around us. “Actually, he has been invited to go to America to teach – and asked me to go with him.”

“And will ye?” I asked, almost breathless – pushing down the sudden feeling of panic, like a dark wave that threatened to swallow the skyscrapers of my soul. “Go with him?”

“I honestly don’t know.” She admitted slowly, wincing a little. “But I accepted his proposal so…I should want to go with him, shouldn’t I?”

“I dinna ken much about serious relationships.” I said in a hoarse voice. “But I dinna understand how a man can leave a woman like ye, alone, in such a night. I dinna ken how anything can be more important than being with ye.”

“It’s complicated!” She tried to argue, but her voice lacked the vigour of certainty. “He has to work a lot to get recognized. Sometimes he has to let go of superfluous things, as much as I –“

“Dinna say that!” My voice was a deep rumble, suddenly stripped of all civility. “Ye should be the priority in his life, lass. Ye are a wonderful woman.” I gulped. “Any man deserving of being with ye, should give ye the place ye deserve in his life. Never settle for less, Claire.”

She nodded, looking away to hide the sudden threat of tears. Eventually, her body relaxed and her cheek came to rest in the lapel of my blazer, silently thanking me for my support. I could feel the small movements of her lashes, the hot breath of her life so close to my heart – I never felt more alive, nor more defeated.

We talked and danced the night away – I made her twirl and laugh, until her face was less pale, more like the lively girl in the graveyard, so alive amongst my ghosts.

At the end of the night, I escorted her to a taxi – not daring to offer her my company to her doorway. I feared what the intoxicating mixture of her and the champagne might conjure up.

She smiled – skilfully tucking something inside the pocket of my overcoat – and stood on her toes to kiss my cheek in a tender goodbye. Later, feeling less overwhelmed by the lack of stars, I read her note – “ _In case you need it. XO_ ”. She had added a phone number underneath the short sentence and a funny smiley face, with abundant curly hair.

I kept her note under my pillow for the next few weeks – a silent dare, urging me to take a leap of faith. I was convinced that my path was fundamentally entwined with Claire’s – it had to be a reason for the insistency of life to place her in my way. She lured me in – fascinated me.

I must have grabbed the phone, adamant on calling her, half a dozen times. Started to dial her phone number – by then carved on my brain with luminescent red ink of desire – at least a dozen more. I mentally prepared our conversation – tried different variations of casualness, honesty and tenderness. I laid awake at night, gazing at the phone, ominous and teasing.

“ _Iffrin_!” I desperately reprehended myself one night, almost a month after the gala. I clenched my teeth, breathed deeply several times, and made the call – prepared to invite her for innocent coffee.

 _“The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected or is no longer in service.” –_ said the mechanical and metallic voice that took me back to a place with no stars.


	4. Part IV – “It’s only the air you took and the breath you left”

**Part IV – _“It’s only the air you took and the breath you left”_**

**_Twenty-six_ **

I rose from bed, avoiding to look at Laoghaire’s naked form next to me, as I covered her with the sheet, blindingly white in the shadows of my room. She was curled on her side, her face so serene and peaceful that vomit came up my gullet, sour and acrid against my tongue.

I hustled to the bathroom, were I quietly and thoroughly vomited shame and regret mixed with the few contents of my stomach. Afterwards I sat next to the toilet on the cold floor, soothing and reviving like welcome water, my body aching from retching – and the struggle to exorcise the deep feeling of being tainted. With the back of my hand I wiped my mouth and dragged myself to the sink, where I wished I could plunge to drown everything into oblivion.

Laoghaire was a good company, a caring and bonny lass – clearly in love with me from the very start, when we had met at a pub in the _Royal Mile_. We had been going out intermittently for the last few months - more from a feeling of defeat than true interest on my part.

My body had responded to hers, as she kissed me and whispered words of adoration – for some time, I had allowed myself to believe in the fantasy that, in time, I would be able to love her. But each day she demanded more with her body and her doe eyes – and I increasingly withdrew from her. Even sex – a bridge that we had used in the start to serve as common ground – was becoming mechanical and, from my part, heartless. I felt irrationally angry when I kissed her and guilty when her body rose to mine – my hands were rough on her hips, as I punished her with blind kisses. I couldn’t love her, as much as I tried to force myself – but I couldn’t let go, a drunkard addicted on company, fearing a relapse of loneliness.

And now I was acutely aware that it was not her fair hair I sought when waking up. The eyes I searched for when I was spiralling towards release, had been gone from my sight for two years. When I cradled her against my chest, I longed for another crystalline laugh, always on the verge of shattering, of breaking me. The curve of her waist didn’t fit my hand – didn’t invite me to dance against it.

Sometimes when I was inside Laoghaire, too lost in the explosions of millions of synapses, I had to swallow a moan that formed with another name. I called out to _her_ silently, thrusting against a woman that left me homeless. Afterwards, I felt a traitor, a dirty man with no honour, promising redemption but failing to really pursue it.

I got out of the bathroom and padded to the big window, where cascades of water streamed down the glass, nameless rivers destined to die before reaching the sea. Outside, the world seemed to dwell only in darkness and water – and I belonged there, with the wicked things that bore no light.

I had seen Claire three times – that I could feel so strongly about her, so irrevocably certain, sounded like the ravings of a mad man. Still, her eyes had a spell that talked of my name and her lips harboured the secret of my fate. I desired her body alright – but truly _burned_ for her soul, for the mind-blowing connection we had formed when innocence still allowed us to be unrestrained.

I knew she had likely married – a golden band on her finger, that didn’t speak of her nature, where the absurd diamond had been – and moved away to America, where I’d never find her. Most likely, she would never belong to me – and yet, I was _hers_. That she may never claim me, made no difference whatsoever – I’d belong to Claire Beauchamp as long as I drew breath.

Laoghaire sighed and rolled over, her body searching mine in the quiet hours of night, yearning for closeness. I wouldn’t return to bed – to her - instead I’d lay awake on the couch until sunrise. I had no solace to offer her, when I was tormented with the absence of the one I truly wanted.

I darkly contemplated the words I’d use to tell her in the morning – how her eyes would open in shock, discovering that our last kiss had arrived unannounced. Perhaps she’d hit me – I honestly couldn’t disagree with her entitlement to do so. She would try to bargain, to ask for a little less – incredulous at the thought of us parting. But I couldn’t rob her anymore of what was not mine to take – I couldn’t offer her more meaningless promises, mere scraps of the love I’d give to Claire so willingly.

“Where are ye?” I whispered against the misted glass, towards the woman I loved so senselessly, hidden outside my view, somewhere in the haze.

***

I saw Claire two weeks after ending my relationship with Laoghaire, as I walked home after teaching the last class of the day. For a moment, as I glared at her - hurriedly walking on the sidewalk across the street - I believed I was having a hallucination. A welcoming trick constructed by my mind, playing on the edge of madness.   

I called her, but my voice was strangled, barely a whisper escaping my lips. I was paralyzed, struck by how lovely she looked with her hair escaping from a half dismantled ponytail, her casual clothes enough to highlight the delicate forms of her body.

Before I could think any further I was following her down the street, set on an unavoidable course by my life’s singular linchpin. I’d get glimpses of her amongst the crowd, avoiding a hazardous cyclist or glancing at a window display – mainly of book stores. But she carried on, following her invisible path, clearly decided to quickly achieve her destination.

I pursued her, numb to occasional shoves and elbow collisions, deaf to imprecations by other bystanders – my whole being fixed on her. _Claire_.

Eventually she entered a residential building and I followed her – thanking God for the door left open, the latch slightly rusty - arriving in time to watch the elevator stopping on the fourth floor.

I chose to slowly climb up the stairs, allowing myself some time to think of what I’d say – everything that came to mind sounded creepy or ridiculous, even without actual words. I still hadn’t formed a coherent idea when I reached the landing.

There were two doors there – both old but reassuringly solid, with no visible identifications. I was breathing fast – not so much from the physical effort, but from the insane rhythm of my heart.

I stood there, undecided, until I heard a soft mew inside the apartment on the right. Not knowing why, I approached and knocked on the door.

She opened the door almost immediately, as if she had been waiting someone. Her alluring face seemed tired – with deep dark circles around her inquisitive eyes – and there was a sadness there that hadn’t been present before, a cloud covering the moon of her wit, her flame smothered to a quiet spark. The wedding ring of my nightmares was there – real as punch in my wame, an extravagant fetter someone had placed to imprison a white raven.

“Claire.” I breathed out – almost sobbed. 

“Jamie.” She whispered, her eyes wide open. I noticed her nails were short, as if she had bitten them until blood ran, while she nervously pulled at the sleeves of her blue sweater. A slender cat sat near her feet, looking curiously – amiably? - at me.

“I’m sorry, I -” I tried to explain, but slowly – tentatively – she walked to me and her body went almost slack, relaxed, her forehead leaning against the curve of my neck. I instinctively held her, shielding her with my arms - her body was trembling against mine, her barely supressed devastation propagating through me like an earthquake. I noticed she was scrawny as a starved bird.

“You found me.” Claire said in husky voice, opening a secret window to whisper into my heart. “I think…I had been calling out for you.”


	5. Part V – “But we’re still sleeping like we’re lovers”

**Part V – _“But we’re still sleeping like we’re lovers”_**

**_Twenty-six_ **

I stood there, transfixed by the overwhelming feeling of her in my arms, unbelievingly real against the paleness of my tired memories. I didn’t know what had happened to her – clearly something _had_ happened – but was only glad I had found her, right in the moment when my arms seemed to be so needed to hold her.

“Will ye tell me?” I murmured against her hair – fragrant like a freshly squeezed lemon, like a garden after pouring rain -, my hands rubbing her back in soothing circles. “What happened?”

“I will.” She tilted her chin, allowing our eyes to meet – hers were dry but glassy, as if her body was wrecked with fever. “I want to tell you.”

“Good.” I attempted a calming smile, but felt the muscles of my face stiff from concern. “Do ye want to sit down?”

“We can’t talk here.” Claire told me, finally stepping back, away from the comfort of my body – I felt the loss of her warmth as acutely as I would miss a limb. Phantom pain, permanent and excruciating, constructed by the mind to deal with unbearable loss. “This is Geillis place – she is a close friend – and she’ll be arriving shortly from work. I thought she had forgotten her keys when you knocked.”

“Ye can come to my house.” I offered, almost biting my tongue in eagerness. The image of Claire in my home - the tips of her fingers brushing the book spines in the shelf, her lips drinking from one of my glasses - a kiss shared through the marks we’d both leave there – made my heart swell to the point of bursting. “I mean, we can have a conversation there without being disturbed or interrupted.” I babbled, struggling to explain myself over a bout of flushing cheeks.

“Alright.” She nodded in agreement – trusting me implicitly. _Naturally_. “Let me just feed Adso and grab my coat.” The feline meowed in agreement and rubbed against Claire’s legs, sleek and charming, as if he had been waiting to be acknowledged.

We made our way through the pleasant streets of Edinburgh, headed towards my house, located just a few blocks away. We traded some words, but were mostly immersed in our thoughts – preparing what we would say and do, when we finally could expose ourselves in a safe haven. As we walked, we didn’t touch – not even our arms bumped into each other, in that casual way of shared movement. We were both consciously avoiding to touch, keeping a safe distance, even if acutely aware of each other.

“It isna a big house.” I apologized in a jumbled way as we entered my apartment, collecting unmatched socks and forgotten papers along the way.

“I love it!” Claire smiled in a reassuring way, admiring the big flat screen and black speakers. Her butterscotch eyes covered my pictures and books, the quilt thrown over the back of the sofa, the magazines and pamphlets I had sorted inside a little basket next to the bookcase. “I can tell you live here – it’s warm and _alive_. It’s a real home.”

I grinned in content – almost purring in satisfaction -, as she took off her coat. She wandered around, touching objects with a respectful hand and clicking her tongue in appreciation of my book collection. Eventually she talked again, her back turned to me.

“Where is your bedroom?” She asked in a rough voice, unhinged – and then, predicting my puzzlement, she added in a low and hesitant tone, as if talking to herself. “I haven’t been sleeping much – I didn’t want to close my eyes and let my mind roam freely. I can barely stand on my feet, to be honest. Besides,” Claire turned and glanced at me, fumbling again with her sleeves. “I think it would be easier to talk if we touched.”

“Aye.” I breathed deeply, walking towards my room. “Whatever ye need.”

I watched as she laid down on my bed, above the plaid that meant home to me – taking off her boots and socks in the process. Her movements were slow and calculated, as if she wished to cause minimal impact with her presence, so that I would carry on with my life after her departure. Claire rolled to her side, curled like an unborn child, safe and peaceful in the womb.

I came around the bed and managed to lay down – silent and precise as a thief in the night -, leaving an empty space between us, as I faced her. She seemed tired beyond her years and utterly broken.

Without a word she slid her hand to the middle of the bed, where I could reach out and touch it – I did so, softly playing with her fingers until she relaxed and our hands were entwined.

“Why are ye here?” I asked, my voice husky. Her face was a duality of shadows and bursts of light, coming from the window to dance on her features. “In Scotland?”

“I had to come.” Claire adjusted her face on the pillow, caressing the nail of my thumb with her fingers, her golden wedding ring cold like a fetch between us. “I couldn’t be in Boston right now – I needed time to think. This is the one place that has been home to me.”

“Are ye still married?” I risked, watching in anguish as she winced in pain. She sighed – but the movements of my hand in hers seemed to calm her enough to go on.

“Separated.” She licked her quivering bottom lip, avoiding my eyes. “It turns out Frank wasn’t the man I thought he was.  He wanted to own me.” Claire pursed her lips in anger. “And when he couldn’t own me, I wasn’t enough. Everyday became a war between us. A long and tiresome war.”

I gulped, taking in the shrapnel of her destruction. With a swift movement of my spare hand, I rolled up the sleeve of her sweater, revealing bruises the colour of mustard and moss, screaming against her marble white skin – marks of resentful fingers, forceful enough to break vessels and spirits. A lonely tear stream down her cheek.

“He hurt ye!” I hissed furiously between clenched teeth, fighting the urge to maim the husband who had so recklessly broke the vow to protect her – _to love her_. She needed my restraint and I could offer it to her – not another display of bad temper by a man she had trusted. I hesitantly touched the bruises, wishing to erase them with kisses, to heal them with the adoration I would bestow upon her.

“I hurt him back.” Claire assured me, a look of shame crossing her face – as if I could pay witness to the degradations inflicted by both during their marriage. “He didn’t want me to leave. Frank said he still loves me.”

“Does he?” I asked with gentleness, battling the urge to ask _her_ if _she_ still loved _him_.

“I don’t know.” The tear track on her face glistened like a dry river, leaving thirst in its wake. “His love didn’t hurt like this, before.”

I wanted to ask her details on her failed marriage – her unhappiness was patent and unbearable – but restrained myself. She must have spent hours replaying the film of her derailed life, echoing words meant to harm – there was no cure to be found in saying them once more. I wished only to placate her pain – to take it all into myself, if I could. I longed to be the bringer of her smiles and not of her tears.

“I called ye.” I suddenly revealed, half embarrassed. “I waited too long – ye were gone by then. Maybe if I did…things would have been different.”

“Perhaps.” Claire agreed, haltingly. “But you were right – I shouldn’t have settled for less.”

I risked to brush her hair – silky and curly, so elementally Claire that took my breath away – and she closed her eyes in enjoyment of the intimate touch.

“What will ye do?” I asked, so afraid of the answer I could die. I wished for nothing more than to have her in my bed, lying so close to me as I memorized her, for the rest of my days. And yet I knew I had no guarantee of intimacy, of another conversation, of another touch – I savoured them all as a gift, for they were precious and not promised.

“I have to go back to Boston.” Claire explained, gripping my hand with strength. “I have a life there – a nursing job, medical school, friends and - .” She stopped, her eyes wide open.

“ _Frank_.” I swallowed hard, fighting against myself to offer her an encouraging smile. “Ye are still married to him.”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes, almost sobbing. I brought her hand closer to my mouth and kissed her knuckles.

“I won’t tell ye what to do – that is for ye to decide, _mo nighean donn_. But I need ye to know something, Claire.” I touched her chin with tenderness, urging her to open her eyes. “Ye alone hold all my heart – even before I knew yer name, ye meant _light_ to me. I’ll wait for ye my whole life – and gladly so, even if it means that I’ll watch ye from afar, happy and fulfilled with another man, worthy of ye.”

“Jamie, I – “ Claire started, but I kissed her hand again and brought her against my chest, where my heart kept pounding, speaking enough to silence her.

“I’d rather ye dinna make promises ye may not wish to keep afterwards, when yer heart is less sore. When – if - ye mean them, I’ll be here.” I pleaded, staring into her eyes – she held my gaze for a while and nodded back. “Rest now, _mo nighean donn_. Let me watch over ye as ye sleep. Let me see ye safe.”

“I’m always safe with you.” She whispered.

I cherished her and held her hand until she fell asleep – finding new reasons to love her while she dreamt. She felt safe and protected with me – and, for that moment, it was enough.

Even when night came and we were left in complete darkness, I listened to her breathing, absorbing the symphony of the lover I craved. Once in a while I closed my eyes, making sure I could remember her perfectly – opening them again to correct a small detail, to drink another drop of her, afraid I would forget. _Tormented I wouldn’t_.

In the wee hours of night, I fought against sleep. I felt raw and tender, heart and body aching, calling me irresistibly to slumber.

I must have surrendered at some point. I had the vague recollection of a chaste kiss against my lips – timid, yet burning.

In the morning, she was gone.


	6. Part VI – “My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder”

**Part VI – _“My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder”_**

**_Twenty-eight_ **

She didn’t come back after that night – I knew she had gone back to Boston, to take control over her life. _I waited_. The phone never rang to give me news or an explanation, inexplicably silent even though I was certain she could find the number had she wished to. _And I waited_. My mailbox was painfully empty every day, while I dreamt of letters touched by her fingers, read aloud by her warm voice. _And yet I waited_.

I waited because I had no choice – I was meant to wait for her. Our lives were inextricably connected, vessels adrift on the sea with an intended destination written in the stars. I had tried to forget her before, to live pretending I wasn’t waiting – and that had hurt more than the hours I spent awake at night, looking at the spot where she once had laid by my side. But there was that small fraction of time, that heartbeat, just before I opened my eyes in the morning, where everything was possible – and I was happy.

Sometimes I would catch myself checking the weather in Boston, wanting to know if she could see the stars in clear skies – at least I could share that proximity with her. I wondered if she had drank coffee, dark and strong, while her eyes were still half-shut. If she had decided on a specialty yet. That was better than wondering about her marriage – every time I turned my thoughts to Frank, the idea of her being touched by him brought me to a blinding state of anger and fear. I would go outside in those occasions to run, as fast as I could for as long as I was able, until I had fled myself and was somewhat free.

I enjoyed teaching and found great solace in my students, curious and lively little fiends, always looking for trouble. I dedicated myself to the task of keeping their spirits sharp and their curiosity burning.

I had my old friends, with whom I shared whiskey glasses and laughs at the pub – keeping a respectful distance from the place I knew Laoghaire still frequented. They kept me grounded, even with their crudes jokes about my bachelor status. While I was laughing, it was easier to wait – I could almost push Claire to the back of my mind, where she would curl and sleep, satisfied.

Saturday was born in blazing glory, sun shining high in a cloudless sky like a treasure’s coin. I accepted the chance to spend the morning exploring the paths at _Arthur’s Seat_ , pushing myself to the limit. I reached the summit with a delicious pain at each breath intake, the air fresh like crushed mint, filling my chest with the pulse of life.

Back at my apartment, I made plans to shower and spend a lazy afternoon reading and napping on the couch, while I stripped off my sweaty t-shirt, heading towards the bathroom.

That’s when the doorbell rang.

I opened it without thinking twice, expecting perhaps to see Angus or Willie, swinging by to challenge me to watch a rugby match or play a chess game.

Her hair was a bit shorter than the last time I had seen her, framing a face that was slightly flushed from sunlight and anticipation. She was wearing a white sundress and I realized I had been wrong – my memories would never be more than a pale comparison to the woman who stood before me. Her arms were bare, with no visible marks, her flawless skin resembling a painting.

“May I come in?” Claire asked softly, her eyes quickly tracing the lines of my exposed chest before she looked at my face, expectant.

“Of course.” I moved to the side, allowing her in. I brushed my hair with nervous fingers, desperately looking for an old t-shirt to dress. Eventually, I settled for the one I had been wearing, smelling faintly of sweat and crushed leaves.

“I wanted to come sooner.” She swallowed hard. “I’ve been in Scotland for a couple of days, but had to take care of some papers to start my surgical residency here and find somewhere to stay permanently.” Claire searched my eyes. “I’m moving back to Scotland.”

“Aye.” I said in a husky voice. “I’m glad to see ye, Claire.”

“I’m glad to see you too, Jamie.” She smiled, more confident. “These past two years, I -“

“Ye dinna have to explain anything to me.” I interrupted, feeling strangely hollow, fighting against anger which came with a sense of relief.

“I think I do.” Claire insisted, stepping closer to me. “I want you to know that I heard you, Jamie. I didn’t want to make promises until I truly meant them. I had to finish school and decide what I really wanted for my life.”

“And did ye?” I croaked, folding my arms in a defensive gesture, pre-emptively shielding myself from bad news.

“Yes.” She whispered. In that moment she reached out with her hand, offering it to me with her palm down – _naked_. Her wedding ring _gone_. “I divorced Frank more than a year ago – and never lived with him again after I was here.” Claire searched his eyes. “With you.”

“Then why did ye never wrote or called?” I asked, hurt creeping into my words. “Why did ye waited two years to show up again?”

“I had to be worthy of you.” Claire said simply, twisting her hands – her fingers touching the ghost of the ring that once had been there. “I had to make sure I was coming because it was the right thing – not because I was wrecked. You offered me everything and I wanted to have something to give back.”

“I missed ye.” I admitted in a whisper, as her hand touched my cheek – I closed my eyes, surrendering to her caress. “ _A Dhia_ , I thought I’d go mad with the idea of never seeing ye again.”

“I missed you too.” She gasped, her body so close to mine I could feel the swell of her breasts, the compelling heat coming from her skin. “I haven’t realized I could barely breathe until now.”

“Are ye here to stay then?” I asked serious, our eyes locking. We were gently swaying along some music we could both listen, too eager to stand still, too afraid to finally meet in quietness. “Because if ye’re not…”

She silenced me with her trembling fingers, touching my mouth, learning the shape of my lips. I almost moaned with the pleasure of her touch, so sincere and tender.

“I’m here to stay.” Claire assured me, tracing the line of my chin, where stubble prickled. “If you’ll have me.”

“I’ll have ye in any way I can.” I whispered, my voice almost breaking with emotion – and yet, stronger than ever before. “Always.”

“Jamie…” She sighed with a smile, her forehead leaning against mine. “May I kiss you?” I realized she didn’t wish to rob me another kiss, a thief taking something precious, covered in the night’s cloak.

“I thought ye’d never ask.” I gave her a lopsided smile and our lips finally met, a kiss eighteen years in the making, hesitant at first and then all-consuming.

We spent the afternoon discovering each other, laying in the living room’s rug, slowly and languidly displacing clothes in order to kiss another inch of skin, to draw shapes of desire with our fingertips.

I opened the first buttons of her dress, tracing with my tongue the curve of her breasts; she insinuated her hands on my shorts, caressing the fine copper hairs of my thighs. I nuzzled her neck, softly biting her until she moaned, so I could reward her with a soothing flicker of my tongue. She laughed and playfully clawed my back, making sure I too would wear medals of our war, marks of the victor. I marvelled with the roundness of her arse and the feel of her swollen lips, battered with kisses, ever-wanting. I was mightily aroused – that much was evident to us both – and yet I didn’t move to enter her. I didn’t wish to precipitate the voyage we had started together, to hasten something that would come naturally to us, as each one of our meetings through life had. I would finally get a lifetime of her and planned to savour each small conquest.

“Are ye hungry?” I asked eventually, kissing her shoulder. She looked dishevelled and wanton, pure lust and love in the shape of a woman – I’d never seen her more beautiful or desirable.

“I’m starved.” She laughed, nuzzling the hollow of my chest one final time. “Will you feed me then?”

“Ach, I’m too knackered to cook.” I admitted, playing with her curls – already sorely missing her lips on mine. “But there’s a fantastic Mexican place nearby – I’ll buy ye dinner.”

“If you’re planning to intoxicate me with Margaritas,” Claire sat up and started to compose her clothes. “I have to say it’ll probably work like a charm.”

We left the house walking hand in hand, like two loved up teenagers, giggling and teasing each other. I’d pull her against me once in a while to kiss her again, to the general amusement and surprise of people around us. I didn’t know such happiness was possible – I felt my chest so full that no space was left for regret or doubt.

We were talking about plans to spend Sunday together, when we heard the commotion. A loud crash, someone screaming – the air was thick with tension, harder to breathe in. I felt Claire gripping my hand one final time before she let go, prepared to face what was certainly coming around the corner.

A man with a black ski mask emerged from the sizable jewellery store, which had imposing diamond rings and golden necklaces peeking through the window displays. He carried a dark sports bag at his shoulder and in one hand sported a menacing revolver, while the other grabbed a shrieking shopkeeper by the hair. Blood dripped from the side of her head, where she had probably been pistol-whipped, her eyes blank with shock.

An alarm went off inside the store, an unnerving sound that made me shiver, the hairs on my arms erecting in fear.

The robber shouted something – a car was waiting near the curb, another masked man inside it. He forcefully pushed the woman against the sidewalk, her head bumping against the edge with a nauseating sound of crushed eggshells.

I think I screamed, trying to stop Claire from moving – I knew she would go. She had healed me times enough for me to know that she wasn’t capable of witnessing suffering without trying to interfere.

It happened in a second and yet I saw it in slow motion – how she kneeled next to the woman, trying to stabilize her neck, to evaluate her wounds, calling for her with the lips I just had kissed moments before. The man in the ski masked turned and looked at her, laughing at the sight of her unfruitful gestures – she held his gaze in defiance, insulting him with her sharp tongue.

I was already screaming before it happened – I could see it so clearly and yet I was powerless to stop it. The gunshot that announced the ending, loudest even than my heart breaking.

I ran to her, trying to catch her before she fell on her back. For a moment I thought he had missed her – but a drop of red appeared on the white of her dress, spreading quickly across her belly like a net of poison, a cloud of blood drenching the fabric.

She looked at me with her eyes wide open in painful shock. I sobbed and cried for help, trying to keep her with me through a stupor of despair, my hands pressing the wound as my heart’s blood left her body.

“Jamie.” Claire whispered weakly, searching my eyes. And I started to pray, as sirens wept around me.


	7. Part VII - "You bleed just to know you're alive"

**Part VII – _“You bleed just to know you’re alive”_**

**_Twenty-eight_ **

Why do sirens cry in blue and red?

Are they calling for help, for the crushing urgency, the need to rob time of time itself? Or are they warning us to look away, to prepare ourselves because tragedy is upon us – we might as well be next?

Even after many years, I’d recall their grieving sound. The way my hands pressed upon Claire’s belly, blocking the exit of her life with my palms. The screams around me, senseless, enhancing my growing despair. How her eyes never left mine – daring me to stay with her, to keep death at bay.

The paramedics came. They could have taken from seconds to a lifetime to reach us – I wouldn’t be able to say. Time skipped and jumped, a leaf on the fury of wind, fragile at the thought of flying.

“I need you to step aside, sir.” A small man told me with assertiveness, trying to dislodge me from my position, kneeled next to Claire on the ground. His gloved hands were already evaluating her pulse, placing an oxygen mask on her face.

“I will not leave her side!” I growled, ferocious. He gave me a serious look, but didn’t make any further attempts to take me away from her, certain I would strike and maim any man foolish enough to try. _He was right_.

They quickly bandaged her abdomen with a pile of snow white compresses, held tight against her body by a bandage skilfully applied. Claire tried not to moan, but I could see her pain in every ragged breath, in the sweat that dripped from her brow.

The ambulance flew across the roads of Edinburgh, transporting us to the closest trauma centre. The driver had opened his mouth – about to object my presence – but was shortly discouraged by my menacing glance and a shook of head from the short paramedic.

“Hold on.” I repeated to Claire, like a mantra, holding her band – being almost thrown to the opposite side of the ambulance as the vehicle raced to the hospital, jumping on speed bumps and sliding on the curves like a car in hot pursuit. “Dinna die on me, _mo nighean donn_. I won’t let ye, do ye hear me?”

“I’m… not… too keen…. on the idea… either.” She puffed haltingly, making a weak attempt of a smile, which almost broke my heart.

“Woman of thirty, victim of an armed robbery, gunshot wound to the upper right quadrant with no exit wound – she’s losing blood fast.” The paramedic announced, as they erupted through the emergency doors, a team standing by to receive them. “Glasgow fifteen, she has been responsive during transport. Her blood pressure kept dropping, the saline is wide open but ineffective fluid challenge.” He informed to a man with brown hair and olive eyes, who nodded in acquiescence, leading the gurney carrying Claire to a trauma room as I followed closely.

“Denzel.” Claire whispered to the young surgeon, as he started to unpack her abdomen to access her injuries. “Is that you?” He looked at her face, surprised at hearing his name, and his eyes opened in shock.

“Claire!” He touched her face in greeting, as nurses hurried around, preparing trays and drugs that might be necessary. “Dear God! What happened?”

“Do ye know her?” I asked, grabbing her hand in spite of a nurse’s protest, prepared to shoo me away from the secluded room.

“Of course.” He looked at me with concern in his calm eyes, as he started to palpate her belly. Claire hissed in pain and he pursed his worried lips. “I met Claire during medical school in Boston and was very pleased when she decided to return to Scotland and be a resident here, as I am. You really shouldn’t be here, sir.”

“Please…” Claire pleaded, closing her eyes for a second and licking her chapped lips. “Let Jamie stay…just a while longer.”

“Alright.” Denzel Hunter patted her hand in reassurance. “As long as he doesn’t faint on me.”

“How… bad… is it, Denny?” She asked, her eyes more unfocused and glassy. “I’m…fairly…sure…it went through…my liver.”

“And I’m sure you’re right - brilliant even in this situation, my dear. I’ll ask Doctor Myers to come in to operate.” Denny smiled, skilfully inserting a catheter on her jugular vein.

“I’ll be dead…before…he gets here.” Claire said sheepishly, raising her brow. Her face was hazardously pale, her whiskey eyes shining even brighter, her orbs dilated from pain and blood loss. “It has…to be you. I trust… _you_.”

Denny nodded, solemn, checking her pupils with a small flashlight, as she suddenly became unconscious – the monitors around them going crazy with alarms. “She’s bleeding out! Let’s move people, hang that saline wide open and two units of blood on the rapid infuser!” He commanded, concentrated in the wound’s trajectory. “Do you know her blood type, by any chance?”

I didn’t know her blood type – never had the chance to ask her, that information amongst a million other precious details of her that I knew nothing about. I didn’t know her birthday, even though I knew the position she slept in. I didn’t know her favourite dish – even if I was aware she preferred sneakers than high heels. I almost choked at the realization of the lifetime of things I could be robbed of, so devastatingly – left wondering, forever, because the time we had been offered hadn’t been enough. Knowing how much I loved her – and yet knowing so little of the one I loved.

“I dinna ken.” I admitted, gripping my fists, fighting the urge to curl into a ball and weep on the floor, stained with her blood.

“That’s alright.” Denzel assured me, throwing away compresses soaked in blood. “Let’s go with O-negative! I need a blood gas test as soon as possible and someone call the OR, let them know we’re coming! I want to be doing the first cut in less than five minutes!”

“Is she going to be alright?” I fearfully asked him, reluctantly letting go of her hand as a nurse took blood from her wrist with a fine syringe.

“She’s going into shock from the blood loss.” He explained in a steady voice. “I need to repair the damage right away, before she’s too unstable to endure the procedure. We’ll take her away now.”

I approached her, feeling numb as if my own blood had been turned to ice in my veins. I kissed her forehead, my lips hot against her perspired skin.

“Don’t leave me, Claire. This time I’ll beg.” I whispered in a broken voice. “ _Don’t leave me_.”

****

I roamed the strikingly white corridors, incapable of sitting any longer in the waiting room outside the OR, where other husbands, daughters and mothers gathered, hope and fear lurking inside their eyes.

I came upon the small chapel, whispering of shelter and tranquillity in the half-light. I sat on the wooden bench, my hands entwined in prayer – I was ready to surrender to His will well enough, but was intent on offering a bargain.

“Lord, ye gave her to me.” I whispered, my eyes fixed on the cross where he had been martyr, symbol of the most loyal of loves. “I canna make sense of it in any other way. When my need was greatest ye set her upon my path so she could heal my soul. All along I was meant for her.” A warm tear streamed down my check, too raw to be contained. “And I intend to love her well the rest of my days – to care for her and make a home of her heart. I shall repay the gifts bestowed upon me by loving her to the best of my abilities. So I ask ye now – dinna take her away.”

I clenched my teeth, fighting against the sobs that threaten to wreck my body. “For if ye ever loved, ye know this – there’s this place inside me that only exists as long as she walks the earth. Once she’s gone, the part of me that lived in her light – the best, the one that makes me myself and no one else - will die with her.” My voice was unhinged, resounding in the naked walls, pulsing as the chambers of His heart. “I’m none so brave as I was before, ken?” I added very softly. “Not brave enough to live without her anymore.”

I heard footsteps approaching the door – I didn’t bother to clean away the tear tracks on my cheeks. I didn’t turn either – I knew who had come to bring me news.

“Does she live?” I asked aloud – the hint of pain, of shaped glass an inch away from shattering, creeped into my voice.

“She lives.” Denzel Hunter sat next to me, sighing in tiredness as his bones found comfort in transient rest. “It was touch and go for a while, but I was able to retrieve the bullet and repair the vessels – she lost a bit of her liver, but it will regenerate itself with time.” His outline was sharp, softness mixed with edges, akin to a bust of an angel descending from grace to speak of hope to the lost crowd. “It will be a slow recovery – but she lives.”

“Thank ye.” I closed my eyes and bent my head, my body shaking from supressed grief, as I let go of the leash I had been using to keep myself together. “ _Thank ye_.” I repeated. I didn’t know if I was thanking Denzel Hunter or God – but to me, in that moment, they were one and the same.

He squeezed my shoulder in silent acknowledgment and left me alone – to cry for joy and gratitude, for my heart had been saved.

****

I sat by her side as soon as she went to a room in recovery. I jumped each time a monitor bleeped, startled to the point of panic – but she slept peacefully, her lips still hauntingly pale.

I knew sleep wouldn’t touch me – my task was to watch over her. To guard her. _To will her back to me._

 I marvelled with each heartbeat – found terror in the infinitesimal space between each and every one of them. I talked to her in the _Gaidhlig_ , the language of my dreams, in which I could best tell her all my heart. I brushed her hand with inquiring fingers, learning the lines of her to make sure they were still the same. I kissed her lips softly, remembering the promise of her laugh.

And as the moon rose outside, I watched the circuit of air inside her lungs, the tiny movements of flesh and bone, adjusting to the challenging rhythms of life. I watched her breathe again and again, until she opened her eyes to look at me – and I discovered that I too could breathe again. 


	8. Part VIII – “Please teach me gently how to breathe”

**Part VIII – _“Please teach me gently how to breathe”_**

**_Twenty-eight_ **

“Open yer mouth.” I ordered with what I thought might be a commanding voice, holding a spoon in front of her stubbornly closed lips. “This jelly actually looks delicious. Ye need yer strength.”

“Yuck.” Claire showed me her tongue in distaste. “Why don’t _you_ eat it, then? I’ve been eating that yellow blob for the last three weeks!”

“Sometimes it’s red.” I pointed patiently. “I ken ye’re tired of being here, _mo nighean donn_ – I have spent enough time in hospitals to last _me_ a lifetime, I assure ye – but ye’re scrawny as a bird fallen from its nest. They won’t let ye leave unless ye put on some weight.”

“Fine.” She replied in a mordant tone, clutching the spoon away from me. “But I can feed myself – I’ve been shot, not taken back in time to when I was two years old.”

“Then stop acting like a wicked bairn.” I offered her a playful nose scrunch. “How is yer pain?”

“About as good as it was two minutes ago, the last time you asked.” Claire swallowed a spoonful of the hospital’s dessert, grimacing. “Are you sure you haven’t been a nurse in a past life? You seem to like prodding and ordering way too much.”

“I’m sure whatever I was, ye were always the one in charge, lass.” I kissed her forehead – marvelling with the freshness of her skin, after so many days of burning fever. On top of her surgery, from which she was slowly recovering, Claire had developed an infection of her suture – which finally had started to heal properly, after days of intravenous antibiotics. Her usually calm and centred temper had suffered with prolonged seclusion and constant fear of a relapse – and undoubtedly she found my constant attentions profoundly tiresome, if amusing and heartening.

“How is my favourite patient?” Denzel asked, entering the room and greeting us with a warm smile. He looked tired, wearing his crumpled scrubs, his surgical cap slightly hanging from a pocket. “I hear half of the nurses in the department are handing in their notices, unless I discharge you.”

“Hardly.” Claire smiled, neatly folding a corner of her sheet after pushing away the lunch tray. She still looked quite pale, with deep dark smudges under her eyes, but her orbs had regained their usual sharpness and liveliness. “But I’ll let you get away with it if you let me leave this damned place.”

“I’ll have to check your dressings.” Denny squeezed my shoulder in a companion manner, before stepping in to expose her abdomen, still covered with fluffy white bandages. “Your labs are back though – your infection parameters are finally down, so you might be in for some good news.”

After some clicking of his tongue – and a heated debate between the two doctors, from which I only understood about half the strange words – it was settled that Claire was allowed to leave the next day, as long as she accepted to come in every two days to check and redress the wound.

“And you have to build up some body again.” Denzel alerted, ignoring her disarming glances with a professional face. “The infection took almost all of your muscle. You need to eat a bit more if you want to heal nicely.”

“Fine!” She conceded, mocking exasperation. “Get me a cheeseburger, then!”

“Take care, Claire.” Denny winked and brushed her hair with a kind hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning before you leave.”

“Will ye go home, do ye think?” I asked slowly, as she adjusted her pillow to settle in for the afternoon, after Denzel’s departure.

“Where else would I go?” Claire gave me a questioning look, softly squeezing my hand.

“Well,” I started, caressing her knuckles with my thumb. “I was thinking ye could come to my place – just while ye heal.” I added hurriedly, trying not to sound desperate and possessive. “My mind wouldna be at ease if ye were alone in her house, almost empty as it is, with no one to look after ye.”

“If you’re sure.” She raised a brow and smiled. “I can be quite the handful.”

“I am.” I breathed out, trying to control the emotions that seemed to ran so close to the surface, exposed and rampant, after her injury. “Bad things seem to happen when we’re apart. I want ye close to me – I want to care for ye, _mo ghraidh_.”

“It’s settled, then.” Claire grabbed by hand and pulled me in for a rewarding kiss. “You’ll be my private nurse.”

****

She had protested, assuring me she was _quite capable_ of climbing up the stairs to my apartment – but I saw the effort everything required of her, even standing or laughing too hard – and carried her in my arms, only letting go when I laid her down on my bed.

After helping her change into some comfortable pyjamas, I contentedly sat by the bedroom window, grading some tests from my students, while she took a nap. Once in a while I stopped, my eyes drifting to her, reassuring myself she dreamt within my reach.

I cooked us a simple dinner – roasted chicken with basil and tomatoes, aromatic and homely – and helped her to lay down again, determined to find a place in the sofa or on the floor, where I could sleep close to her without disturbing her.

“Will you sleep next to me?” She asked softly, her brown curls and hawk eyes almost the only visible thing inside the cocoon of quilts I had made around her. “I’d sleep better with you beside me.”

“Aye.” I replied in a husky voice, easing myself under the covers next to her with gentleness, trying not to disturb her with my movements – the idea of causing her any pain made my stomach churn.

I placed an arm around her, reassuring her of my presence – mindful not to put too much pressure over her or to touch her scar. For a time we laid silent, aware of each other’s presence, discovering the intimacy of a bed shared in darkness.

We had been so once before – but at that time she had been devastated, wrecked like a ship after an unforgiving storm, and I had offered her security, a presence of someone who loved her without any demands. I remembered how I had stayed awake, memorizing her until I could recreate her in my heart - believing I’d never see her again, much less hold her in my arms. I wondered if she too recalled that night, when I had offered her the knowledge of my feelings, in the hope that she could use them to heal – and she had. 

 I knew she wasn’t sleeping – I’d spent every day and night for the last weeks watching her sleep, until I knew the cadence of her breathing, the comes and goings of her dreams, like a second nature of my own.

She trashed about a little, fidgeting with bedclothes and adjusting her body on the mattress – always laying on her left side, wishing to avoid the tenderness of her upper right quadrant – slowly searching for the contact of my body behind hers, sheltering her like a cloak, two halves finally falling into place.

I waited for her to speak, painfully aware of the desires of my body, feeling her soft arse wedged between my thighs – yet completely restrained by the will of the woman who ruled me. 

A hand came up in the darkness and she placed it gently on my hip.

“I want you.” Claire whispered, almost sobbing. “I need you, Jamie.”

“Are ye sure?” I asked in a husky voice, my fingertips brushing her face, tracing her lips to find truth in her words in the absence of sight. “I dinna want to hurt ye. I’d die if I hurt ye, _mo nighean donn_.”

“You could never hurt me.” She replied softly, caressing the length of my thigh. “I can’t breathe while we’re apart. I must have you – _please_ , Jamie.”

I didn’t try to dissuade her again, even afraid as I was that it was too soon, too hazardous. I knew all too well the hunger that moved her towards me, starved for life when death had come so close, when it seemed that each moment could be the last. We had lost and found each other in the past, time and again – it seemed that while we were one flesh, _one body_ , parting us would be impossible. While we were in each other, life – and death – was an afterthought, a remote threat, to which we were immune while moving as one.

I moved impossibly slowly, wishing to give her enough space to retrocede at any time, baring us of as many clothes as possible. I kissed the back of her neck, delighted in the small shivers of her skin next to mine, the testament of her arousal in her hardened nipples. I caressed her body with a worshiping hand, taking time at each new discovery that made her moan and hiss in pleasure.

When I thought her ready – desperately pressing herself against me while clawing at my hair – I held her thigh with a light hand and raised her, slightly folding my legs, so I could enter her. I rocked calmly with her body nestled against mine, letting her command the pace while I carried all the weight of her movements.

“I love you”. She whispered – _moaned_ \- tilting her head to kiss my lips. “ _Jamie_.” I felt the moistness of her cheeks mixed with mine, tears of a joy long forsaken, exploding between us with enough force to leave us gasping, deeply moved.

It didn’t take long – I knew she was still weak, stubborn and lustful as she might have been. When I felt her tire in my arms, my hand came around her hips to delicately touch her in time with our movements, smiling as she cried out my name.

Afterwards, I held her against me, my hand brushing the dressing on her belly to make sure everything was in place – feeling the comforting thump of our hearts beating together, close enough to be inside the same chest.

“I was right.” She murmured on the verge of sleep, surrendering to my keeping once more. “Nothing hurts when you love me.”

 

**_End of Section 1_ **


	9. Part IX - "I'm walking after you"

**Section 2**

_**Part IX - "I'm walking after you"** _

**_Twenty-eight_ **

Coming the following Christmas, I knew what gift I’d hope for. What I’d wish for, with all my heart, as I stepped ahead with my right foot, crossing the threshold as my ancestors did countless times before, Hogmanay blooming in the mantle clock and in the sparkling of champagne.

_I wanted to walk inside her dreams._

Because her dreams took her away from me. Every night she went a little more, a little further – until I have started to fear I’d lose her altogether, to that strange land where past becomes present, where every outcome is again possible.

In her dreams Claire was shot every night – again, again, _again_. She cried out and I held her against me, as powerless awake as she was sleeping. Doomed to pay witness to the woman I loved being hurt by her own mind, replaying the events of that fatidic day, trapped inside it like a mouse in a deadly trap. Sometimes I wondered if the phantom bullet would go straight through her heart, if she would bleed out through those invisible wounds, robbing her of all rest and peace of mind.

Once the ghosts vanished with the rising sun, ebbing away in waves of darkness, she blatantly refused to talk about it – as if her fears were successfully compartmentalized, existing only in the wee hours between sundown and sunrise, never to be spoken about in broad daylight. Every attempt on my part to start a conversation on the subject, would end with her leaving hurriedly to an appointment with Denzel or to check the mail in her own apartment. Defeated, I would spare my strength, and resignedly prepared to the night-time hostilities.

Under my careful supervision, her body had healed – but I suspected her mind had not. Once the relentless war to reconstruct skin, muscle and organ was well on its way, something inside her had found the space to be properly broken.

“Talk about it?” I brushed a curl away from her face, slightly damp with sweat –  _God, please, let it not be from tears_.

“It was only a dream.” Claire whispered on the other side of the bed, her voice so cracked I had a hard time understanding her. “Let’s go back to sleep.”

I didn’t mention how she had woken me with her screams. How I had to restrain her inside my arms, when she tried to blindly fight me off, clawing and screeching – her nightmares didn’t seem to recognize that she loved me.

We stayed awake that night, both pretending to be asleep, grasping each other – to keep the rising tide, threatening to cast us away, at bay for one more night.  

I taught my classes and supervised a test feeling as if I was still roaming on the waves, the roar of wind somewhere in the distance. I was a coward –  _the worst kind_ , a coward in love. Claire had been lost to me more than once and I refused to believe I could be losing her, while she dwelled in my own bed.

Denzel Hunter had told her that she needed to gain weight, to reacquire some muscle, before he could even consider deeming her fit to work again. But despite my best efforts – researching recipes which I thought might appeal to her and even calling Jenny to ask for some cooking tips -, she had barely gained an ounce. When I caressed her body, my hands still found the spaces between her ribs, the too-deep hollows in her hips. I longed to trap her in those moments of liberation, of dissolution, when she would be entirely free for a multitude of heartbeats after our joining.

I entered my apartment rushing, slightly shaking my drenched umbrella, after being caught by an afternoon shower.

“Sassenach!” I called out, undressing my overcoat. I had called Denzel earlier and he finally had allowed Claire to drink a glass of wine, so I was intent on serving her one of  _Lallybroch_ ’s finest vintages in order to work her appetite for some fragrant mushroom risotto.

As I entered the living room, I immediately saw her, sitting on the couch like a marble statue. Her eyes were glazed, her hands shaking; a fine tremor that sent a chill down my spine, as if a powerful draft had suddenly hit the both of us.

“What happened?” I swiftly knelt in front of her, grabbing her hands –  _so cold_. “ _Mo nighean donn_?”  I added more softly, as she didn’t seem to have noticed me. I touched her cheek, my eyes coming within inches of hers, blocking everything else from her sight. “ _Claire_?”

“There has been a robbery.” She blurted and from the corner of my eye I noticed the television, the colours of the news channel shining bright and alarming. “Another jewellery store. They – they  _killed_ a woman.” Her voice wavered. I squeezed her fingers, until I could almost feel the blood pumping in her small vessels. Alive, still.  _Thank God, alive_.

“I’m here.” I said foolishly. I had been _there_  on that day and had prevented nothing – we were both heartbreakingly aware of our frailty, of how quickly blood could run away, how a smile – and all promise of laughter to come – could die in a second.

“They were caught. The getaway car hit a truck on the crossroad.” Claire stared at me, her eyes darkened to well-aged brandy, just the colour of the last Autumn leaves. “The detective in charge of my case called me just before you arrived. They want me to go in and do an identity parade.”

“Alright.” I started to get up, prepared to get her coat and shoes from the bedroom. “It’s close enough, do ye want to walk there?”

“What do you mean?” She looked at me, surprised, as if I had just suggested a roadtrip to the moon for the weekend. “I’m not going!”

“What?” I stared at her, dumbfounded. Her eyebrows were furrowed, her lips pursed – her face was a mask of barely supressed anger and I should tread lightly for both our sakes – but I had  _tried_  gentleness and had seemingly achieved nothing.

“You heard me.” Claire repeated heatedly, crossing her arms. “I won’t go. I – I have nothing to say.” She got up from the couch and nervously walked to the window. “He was wearing a ski mask, so I never saw him. I have nothing else to tell the police.”

I strived for patience and empathy, even if somewhere within me an irrational anger –  _fear_ – was building up. “I ken ye’re afraid, but I –“

“I’m not afraid!” She hissed, almost biting her lip in fury. “I just don’t see the point of going there to tell them I know nothing. And don’t you dare pretending you have the smallest clue of what I feel.”

“Dare?” I snarled, blood thrumming in my ears like demons possessing me, whispering profanities in my head. “ _Dare_? Must I remind  _ye_  that the first time we saw each other as adults, I had been laying in a hospital for weeks after being blown up in my own bed?” I tried to breathe and calm myself, reaching to touch her arms, but she stepped away from me. “I ken fine how it is to feel so vulnerable, so afraid that ye could weep just from thinking of it, every memory as raw as the scars on yer body, ready to bleed again at the smallest probing.”

“Those were _your_  feelings and experiences –  _not mine_.” I could hear the echo of tears in her voice, as coming rain forming on grey and heavy clouds. “I have been _fine_ , I just don’t want to –“

“Ye are not  _fine_!” I pointed an accusing finger at her. “Ye might pretend during the day, but yer dreams ken the truth of it. I share a bed every night with ye, Claire, and there ye canna lie to me.” There was a clear plea in my voice, but the look she gave me revealed how cornered –  _terrorized_  – she felt, that we were finally addressing the subject.

“I won’t be ordered around – not  _again_.” I immediately knew she was mentioning Frank and his inability to accept her as she was. The mere comparison between us made me pale in dismay. “If you don’t enjoy sharing a bed with me, perhaps I should sleep elsewhere.”

“I dinna say that!” I brushed my knuckles against my eyes, exhausted and defeated. “Ye won’t talk to me, Claire, and you’re not healing properly. Perhaps ye should see someone – a therapist or a support group - “

“That is ridiculous!” Her hair was escaping her bun and she looked lost, frazzled, burdened. “I think it’s best if I go back to my apartment tomorrow – I can take care of myself now, so you can have your rest.” She tried to soften the blow, but I felt it in my gut, a dagger only she could yield to wound me as deeply. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed now.”

“Fine.” I replied mechanically, turning my back on her.

She didn’t kiss me goodnight and I didn’t go into the room to speak to her. I improvised a bed on the couch and wallowed in misery, always a welcoming companion.

I stared at the shadows on the wall and waited for her dreams to come.

***

I was already on my feet when I heard her sobs, the soft wailing that made her sound like a scared girl, the curly and lovely creature she had been in the graveyard, when love had found me never to leave again.

I padded softly, feeling the coldness of the tiles on my naked feet, trying not to frighten her. She was trashing against the sheets, her body contorting in a physical fight against unseen things, her mouth slightly open to breathe heavily.

I crawled to a position next to her and touched her forehead. “Claire.”

Claire opened her eyelids, her eyes rolling, following distant images. I repeated her name and grabbed her hands, avoiding her masterful attempts to hit me. She seemed to finally awoke, her eyes still glassy, restless.

“Fight back.” I whispered against her ear. “Fight me.”

“What?” She babbled, shaking her arms to try to free herself from my hands, like vines around hers.

“The gun is pointed at you. You can see his eyes in that ski mask. He is going to kill you.” I continued in a dangerous tone, applying more pressure to keep her in place. “Are you going to let him?”

“Get off me!” She trashed like a wild beast, her knee coming ever closer to my groin. I escaped with a faint groan of relief.

“You won’t fight.” I accused her, as she hissed in my face. “You’re afraid, and rightfully so - but he is coming and ye’ll just pretend to be dead?”

“I lost!” She sobbed in earnest, tears now streaming down her face, glistening in the silver light of the witching hour - the hour when I had come to evoke her demons, a modern warlock, so she could begin to fight them. “I don’t want to fight anymore!”

“You’re alive!” I said between teeth, having trouble keeping her underneath me – she was remarkably strong for such a scrawny thing and I didn’t intend to hurt her. “Fight back! Tell me you’re afraid and then fight me!”

“I’m afraid!” She roared and, as her eyes seem to blaze with renewed fire, she rolled and managed to get on top of me, trapping me with her thighs. “Damn you, James Fraser _! Damn you_!”

“Fight, Claire!” I urged her, feeling the pressure of her nails on my wrists. “Tell me what you see!”

“I’m bleeding.” She looked up as if she was struggling to breathe, tendons and muscles on her neck taut to the point of breaking. “Your hands are on me. They are warm, I can feel you shaking. I don’t want to let go of you.  _I just found you_.”

“Good.” I lightly pushed her and my arms locked around her, so she was straddling me like a spider. “Keep going.  _Fight_.”

“I – I’m cold.” Claire swallowed hard. “I hear sirens, people screaming. You’re saying my name and I know you love me just from the way you say it.”

“Yes, I do.” I breathed out, slightly brushing her back as I hugged her tightly. “What else?”

“He laughed.” She whimpered, trying to get away from the memory, but I held her there, forcing her to see. “His eyes – they were green. But there’s something strange about them.” Claire grimaced and I pressed my forehead against hers, steadying her. “His right eye – has a brown spot on its iris. It must be there since he was a child.”

“Ye did good. So good,  _mo ghraidh_.” I soothed her, as her body was wrecked by urgent sobs, that broke my heart while hers started to mend. “Ye’re so brave. You fought.  _You fought, Claire_.”

I lost all sense of time, as our entwined bodies – our battle positions turned into comfort – sought refuge in each other. Eventually she was calm, spent, almost peaceful and I laid her down beside me.

“I’ll go to the police tomorrow.” She said in a hoarse voice, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw. “I’m still afraid – but now I know that I can identify him.”

“Aye, ye can.” I kissed her temple, afraid that if I stopped touching her something we had conquered, so fragile and breakable, would slip away through our fingers. “Do ye want me to go with ye?” I asked cautiously.

“Yes.” Claire played with the curls on my nape. “Thank you for fighting for me, too.”

“It’s the only battle my heart truly kens.” I held her face between my hands. “I’ve known fear and loss and despair – but I’ve known love, too, through you. It will always bring me back when I need it. I hope mine can do the same for ye.”

“One day, I hope to tell our child our story.” She said softly, tenderness in her eyes.

“Including this?” I kissed her lips, savouring their moistness, the words she had just told me. A child.  _Our child_ , one day.

“Including this.” Claire nodded. “I think I hoped you would come, when we fought earlier.”

 _“You found me”._  She had told me once. _“I think I had been calling out for you”._ Had I heard it again? Those silent calls her heart seemed to send into mine, luring me to her, a beacon guiding me home to her harbour?

“I’ll always follow you, wherever ye need to go,  _mo nighean donn_. I’ll always walk after you, no matter the risk or the cost.”

“And when you’re not following me?” Claire asked with a small smile, her hand sliding on my chest to push me against the mattress. “Where will you be?”

“By your side –  _always_.” I said in a husky voice. “Or inside ye, whenever ye want me.”

 

**_End of Section 2_ **


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